The overly complicated rules for American football

This upcoming Sunday is the biggest sports day of the year
in the United States:
The championship game for the professional league
for playing American Football.
Chicken wings take over the country.
(It would be funnier if chickens took over the country.)

For example,
some penalties cause the game clock to stop running,
and a team that is losing can intentionally
commit penalties, thereby prolonging the game and giving themselves
more opportunities to attempt to score.
To address this,
there is a special rule that
enumerates specific conditions under which
a clock-stopping penalty also causes ten seconds to be
taken off the clock,
thereby discouraging the intentional foul by removing
the clock-stopping benefit.

The problem with the rule is that, of course, it adds
yet another rule,
and then you have to be careful that the new rule doesn't
create its own weird side effect.
But of course, it does have its own weird side effects, and
these side-effects have occurred
a number of times
in the history of American football.
For example,
one rule takes effect when there are five or fewer minutes remaining
in the game,
but a limiting rule does not take effect until the clock drops
below three minutes,
resulting in a two-minute loophole.
Wasserman proposes a second limiting rule to close the gap,
but I claim that this just makes the situation even worse.

My counter-proposal is to remove all the clock-related
limiting rules and substitute
just one:
If a penalty is committed that stops the clock,
the team that did not commit the penalty has the option
of requesting that ten seconds be removed from the game clock.²

This closes the loophole because any situation in which a team could
commit a penalty to stop the clock and gain an advantage
would be negated by the opposition exercising its option to remove
ten seconds from the clock.
There is no need to enumerate in the rule book
all the cases where a clock-stopping
penalty would be advantageous
because the decision can be made on the field by the opposing team.
If one team finds a loophole, the other team can immediately close it.

American football already has a limiting rule of this sort:
If a team commits a penalty, the opposing team has the option
of accepting the result of the play
as if no penalty had occurred.
(This is known as declining a penalty.)
This removes some of the incentive to commit an
intentional penalty far away from the ball
because the opposing team can merely instruct the official
to ignore the penalty.

Except that in American football, some penalties cannot be declined.
For example, a delay-of-game penalty
(which more accurately should be called
excessive delay of game)
cannot be declined,
and it is not uncommon for a team to commit an intentional
delay-of-game penalty
in order to improve the kicking angle of a
field goal attempt.
(I look forward to the situation where one team repeatedly commits
the delay-of-game penality and the other team repeatedly declines it,
until the amount of time remaining on the clock drops to the level
that the team with fewer points decides that any further loss of time is not
worth the short-term advantage.¹)

Another source of unnecessary complexity is that the rules of the game
change based on how much time remains in the game and even based on the
score!
For example, the removal of ten seconds from the clock takes place
only if the game is tied or the the team in possession of the ball
is losing.
Imagine if other sports changed the rules of the game based on the game
progress and the score.
In baseball, a batter is normally out after three strikes,
but in innings eight and beyond,
the batter is out after only two strikes if their team is winning.
In basketball, a basket is worth two points, unless
the game is in the final minute, in which case a basket
is worth five points if scored by the losing team.

The fact that the rules of the game change when the clock crosses
five minutes, three minutes, and two minutes
means that a single
game of American football is really four games played one after
another.³

No wonder it's so complicated.

¹ Canadian football addresses this issue by having the referee
inform the offense that any further delay of game will result in
loss of possession.

I believe that the strategy of intentionally committing delay-of-game-like penalties is no longer effective.

From NFL Rule 4-7-1:

“Two successive delay penalties during the same down, is unsportsmanlike conduct (12-3-1-o). After enforcement of the 15-yard penalty, the game clock shall start on the snap.”

While the defense could repeatedly commit encroachment penalties to keep the clock stopped, the repeated application of 15-yard penalties would eventually move the offense into easy touchdown-territory.

> If a penalty is committed that stops the clock, the team that did not commit the penalty has the option of requesting that ten seconds be removed from the game clock.
I am not that familiar with football, but would it be possible, like in soccer, to intentionally fault the opponent?
— If I am winning, and I could keep faulting my opponent, AND double penalize them by taking time off the game.

Under the current rules, the foul stops the clock unconditionally, so your attempt to take time off the clock has failed. Under my rules, the opponent would decline the option to remove 10 seconds from the clock.

What I meant is that, what if you could commit an intentional action, which result in the opponent to be the faulting party.
Under your proposed rule, if the opponent is at fault, you will be the one to decide whether to take the time off.

It rather involved being on the other side of this airtight hatchway: Sportsball edition
If you can induce the opponent to make mistakes, you might as well skip the fouling and make them let you score touchdowns.

Well, American football does have a form of injury faking, but for the puspose of prolonging a game, rather than trying to get another player penalized. This comes from officals stopping the clock to allow for injured players to be atteneded and get helped off the field. If a team is badly hurting for time and is out of time outs, faking an injury can be beneficial in effectively creating an axtra time out. There are som rule tweaks that try to discourage this, but it definately still happens on ocassion.

Both gridiron football (played by the NFL) and association football (soccer) are derived from rugby. Rugby was originally known as “football” because it was played “on foot.” The implication was that it was the game that peasants played. The comparison was to polo, which was played on horseback.

Well. For Europeans (I am German.) the rules are quite confusing. It all starts with the name of the game: Football, but the ball is moved by hand most of the time. It is like as if we would call our soccer “headball”.

Actually the rules are simple. Carry the ball 10 yards, get four new attempts. Carry the ball in the endzone, score three points and kick the ball through the goal for another one point. Well “actually”. But there are so many exceptions! I wonder if the Americans know all the exceptions.

Plus, way too many breaks. I think my bladder is much too big for American Football. Or my refrigerator is much too small, ;) There is no continuous game play.

Well, after reading this last week, it was interesting to see this (the ten seconds removed from the clock) get called on the second to the last play during this past weekend’s SuperBowl.
BTW, I’m assuming when people talk about “real football” in these comments, they are referring to Canadian Football :-)

american football, canadian football – both are just rugby for wimps ;-) Shoulder polsters, helmets with metal grid before the face – but call it a full-contact sport. Plus all those substitutions possible – either you are good and hard enough to play the whole time or you need to find a better sport ;-)